Hey, we've toned down the 'destroying society' shtick, Facebook insists

The future as nightmare

There is no technical reasons for this concentration of the means of communication. The original Internet was supposed to be about bringing people together with shared interests. The Facebooks are a bastardized corporate conspiracy to control and manipulate people, replacing rational discussion with f*****g likes. A self referential bubble of only like-minded people agreeing with one another. The majority of subscriber seem to consist of immature teenagers who confuse Facebook 'friends' with real life.

Or representative of commercial entities pretending to be same. Some Facebook 'star' pretending to chat with her 'friends' from the confines of her pretend bedroom. Foella or some such, describing her daily outfit that she just threw on, the entire cost adding up to the best part of a hundred quid. Or people recording their every tedious daily routine and broadcasting it to the Ethersphere, Pewdiepie or some such moniker for one example, I don't care. J.G Ballard once described such in a Vogue essay. It's the future as nightmare, none of this is real, go outside and talk to real people.

“Every home will be transformed into its own TV studio. We'll all be simultaneously actor, director and screenwriter in our own soap opera. People will start screening themselves. They will become their own TV programmes.”, 1977 Vogue essay by J.G. Ballard

“All this, of course, will be mere electronic wallpaper, the background to the main program in which each of us will be both star and supporting player. Every one of our actions during the day, across the entire spectrum of domestic life, will be instantly recorded on video-tape. In the evening we will sit back to scan the rushes, selected by a computer trained to pick out only our best profiles, our wittiest dialogue, our most affecting expressions filmed through the kindest filters, and then stitch these together into a heightened re-enactment of the day. Regard-less of our place in the family pecking order, each of us within the privacy of our own rooms will be the star in a continually unfolding domestic saga, with parents, husbands, wives and children demoted to an appropriate supporting role.”, 1977 Vogue essay by J.G. Ballard

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.”, Steve Jobs

I'm not sure people are leaving but how much and what they post is changing.

I see far less personal 'life' information being posted. Far more facetious comments or forwarded funnies. It's no longer the running commentary to many peoples lives that it was.

Younger people I don't think are leaving becasue of any privacy concerns. I think commerce has sufficiently brainwashed them into being happy to reveal everything. But I think they are just bored and are looking to move onto the next thing and the next etc.

Plus FB just isn't slick as a comms platforms. It's a PITA having to manage multiple platforms to suit everyones' favourites and FB messenger is probably the clunkiest to use.

I've slipped into using Apple Messenger as my default without even knowing I was doing it. Which I suppose is a mark of well that suits me.

If you can find it... Radio 4 did a new series of the old C4 comedy sketch show Absolutely.

They did a skit of "what if Facebook could talk". It was quite good at highlighting how stupid FB really is.